Innocents
by DalekQueen7
Summary: Anakin's march on the Jedi Temple, told from a youngling's point of view. One-shot. Kind of dark.


**This is me giving into my depressive tendencies. Don't worry: I'll be back to normal by tomorrow. That is, unless I re-read this…**

 ***sniffle***

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Scant minutes before their kind's destruction, those few Jedi who walked the cavernous entryway of the Temple were so caught up in their own affairs that they universally failed to notice a small figure in the shadows.

The youngling's booted feet made soft thudding sounds as he darted from one pillar to another, making his way toward the entrance and trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and his Creche master.

"Esam!" he heard her calling in the distance.

Esam just giggled and pressed himself against the back of a pillar.

Running away, even for a short time, was much more fun than the mind-and-body exercises that he and his Creche mates usually did at this time of night, and much, _much_ more fun than the night's threatened bath.

Esam hoped that by hiding until after sleeper-time, the dreaded event might be postponed.

His Creche master's calls gradually faded away as she went to search other area of the Temple, and after a few moments of listening, Esam peeked out from behind his pillar. The room was empty and dark but for flickering torches around the perimeter.

He was just about to make a dash for the entrance when he heard the deep throbbing footsteps of many armored bodies marching in unison.

Wanting to get closer, Esam ran to the next-nearest pillar and crouched down. He gasped when the sound's source came into view.

Although every Jedi initiate - particularly those who were born only a couple of years before the Clone War's beginning, like Esam - had grown up listening to stories about the clone troopers, few had actually seen one in the flesh. Certainly none had seen this many troopers at the same time.

Esam gleefully considered what his friends would say when he told them about the troopers, then automatically quelled the reaction. _Pride is not the way of the Jedi_ , he reminded himself. Instead, he tried to imagine sharing his experience for his friends' sake and not for his own, which seemed acceptably humble. He nodded to himself, pleased with his logic.

Meanwhile, the troopers marched closer.

Esam frowned when he noticed the figure who led the advance. The man was wearing Jedi robes, but had his hood drawn. Esam squinted and saw a brief flash of yellow glinting in the torchlight before darkness again wreathed the man's face.

The child noticed for the first time a sick twisting in his gut. As he backed away, further into the shadows, the twisting grew and somehow conveyed an urgent plea to _run_!

As fast as he could without drawing attention to himself, Esam ran along the wall, back into the solid safety of the Temple.

He slipped through a side door, ran along the adjoining passageway until it opened into a large training room, and stopped, panting. Several younglings and Padawans stood inside practicing with their training 'sabers, but all turned when they noticed Esam's entrance.

One of the Padawans stepped over and knelt before Esam.

"Hello, little one," the Padawan said. Her braid was no more than two inches long, but she was still the room's eldest occupant. "What's wrong? Why are you afraid?"

Esam pointed back up the passageway. "There are troopers up there, and a man with yellow eyes is with them."

The Padawan's brow furrowed, but she smiled slightly. "Troopers never come into the Temple, little one, and I don't know of anyone who has yellow eyes. Perhaps you just had a bad dream?"

"No, they _were_ there," the child insisted. "The man felt wrong! When I looked at him, my stomach hurt." He gestured toward his middle with both hands and made twisting motions, trying to demonstrate the feeling.

Suddenly, the female Padawan and several older students in the room gasped and clutched their own middles. Esam felt the cause of their discomfort to a lesser extent, and recognized it as the same twisting he had felt before. This time, however, it felt like something had twisted and then _ripped_ … leaving a hole where once was light.

Still clutching her middle, eyes rapidly filling with tears, the Padawan jerked upright and grabbed Esam's hand. She stepped forward and quickly ushered him and the other younglings behind the room's only available cover: a collection of chairs set near the wall.

"Stay here," she ordered, pushing Esam with the others before stepping back to stand with her fellow Padawans. "We're going to see what's going on."

The small group gripped their training 'sabers and crept silently back toward the passageway that Esam had exited mere moments before. One, a short Togruta male, pressed his back against the wall beside the door and craned his head around the frame in the manner of one in the middle of a gunfight.

Almost immediately, a blaster shot appeared and struck the Padawan in the forehead before he even had a chance to raise his 'saber. He crumpled instantly, weapon clattering to the ground as it slipped from limp fingers.

The other Padawans jumped back from the door, some with muted screams, their eyes latched onto their fallen comrade's body. More blaster fire came through, striking the opposite wall and the very chairs that Esam and his fellow younglings were using as shields.

The little ones scattered, most hysterical with fright. Some ran directly into the crossfire in their panic, falling in little robed heaps on the floor when fire met flesh. Esam whimpered when a small girl standing right beside him received a shot to the chest. She stumbled backwards and her eyes met his before going dim and lifeless as she fell the rest of the way to the floor.

Esam blinked away moisture and desperately looked around for a way out of the carnage. He spotted a small side door and ran for it, dodging blaster fire and fallen bodies, finally making it just as the first clone trooper breached the other doorway. Esam quickly yanked open his small door, jumped through, and closed it behind him.

Beyond, the hallway was eerily silent. Esam could still hear the battle going on behind him, but thick wood muted it. He allowed himself one sob, one moment of stillness in the empty passage, then ran as fast as he could. No need to worry about someone seeing him now.

This passage ended in another door, and after a moment of deliberation Esam pressed his ear against it. He could hear nothing.

The door's hinges creaked as the little boy cautiously pushed it open. Esam could see that it led into a large atrium with a fountain in the middle, and several groups of Jedi huddled behind the fountain and pillars, facing the main entrance. The doors were closed, but alarming groans and screeches emitted from the metal as something from the other side pressured them.

Esam ran from his doorway to a large potted bush - one that he used to use as his hide-and-seek place - jumping in and settling himself amongst the leaves just as the main doors buckled and exploded inwards.

The man with the yellow eyes stepped through, followed by troop after troop of clones. They opened fire on the Jedi.

Masters and Padawans alike frantically reflected bolts back in the troopers' general direction, killing the first wave of bodies but ultimately failing against the sheer number of bolts. A human Padawan, old enough to be nearing Knighthood, was the first to fall, and her Master cried out when he felt her death. In his distraction he was next, face twisted in grief as he crumpled beside her prone body, draping his arm across her torso before he, too, succumbed.

Esam sobbed into his fist, unable to stop himself but desperate not to make noise or rustle his plant. He could feel tears sliding down his cheeks and his chest felt tight. And as bad as the stomach twisting had been before, it was now many hundreds of times worse, and felt like it was ripping his very soul away.

Masters fell protecting their Padawans, who stood protectively over their masters' bodies with tear-streaked faces. Friends watched friends fall, only to die themselves before grief could set in. Younglings died with nothing more than a whimper and a soft _thud_.

As more and more of their number joined the Force, so did the hole in the light, and that distraction was enough to finally end the last standing Jedi.

Esam forcibly stopped his sobbing and shaking when the room lapsed into silence. The yellow-eyed man spoke.

"Go search for survivors, and kill anyone you find," he ordered the clones, who immediately snapped their heels together and set off as groups in different directions. The man's voice rasped oddly.

When the clones were gone, the man began walking forwards, swiveling his head from side to side.

"I know you're there, and I know you can hear me," he said after several moments. The comment held an undertone of malice.

Esam stifled a whimper, pressing his fist more securely into his mouth. He squeezed his eyes closed.

The man stopped for a moment, then resumed walking, but his footsteps echoed strangely. With his eyes closed, Esam couldn't make out where the man was.

"This is for the good of the universe," a harsh whisper reverberated around the room. Tears leaked from the sides of Esam's still-closed eyes. "With the Jedi gone, we can start anew! No more corruption or narrow-minded old men preventing order; we can be free to develop as we were meant to!"

A loud clang punctuated the last statement, and Esam cringed backwards. He trembled uncontrollably, but managed to keep the shrub's branches from shaking.

The room was silent.

Esam waited.

He could hear nothing but the fountain's splashes. No footsteps, no voices, and no sounds of blaster fire or creaking metal.

He opened his eyes, and brown met yellow as the latter's glowing red blade was thrust through Esam's torso.

The child grunted as the blade withdrew just as quickly as it had gone in. Strangely, it felt cold, even though Esam knew the blade was hot.

He blinked, swayed, and found himself falling forward, out of the bush.

The man with the yellow eyes caught him and eased him onto the ground, then straightened and observed him from high above.

"I could sense your fear, little Jedi," the man said almost tenderly, and Esam blinked.

When he could see again, all was light. The hole within him filled with the voices of a thousand generations, and he drifted away, content.

After all, four years of life is sufficient.

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 **Yeah... let's just say I have had a bad week and leave it at that.**


End file.
